Freeware - Office / Business
Items on this page are arranged by category.
Categories: Desktop Publishing / Diagram and Flowcharts / Financial / File Archiving / Office Suites / Project / Reference / Utilities
Desktop Publishing
Scribus – http://www.scribus.net/
Scribus is an open-source Desktop Publishing program that brings award-winning professional page layout to Linux/Unix, MacOS X, OS/2 and Windows desktops with a combination of "press-ready" output and new approaches to page layout.
Underneath the modern and user friendly interface, Scribus supports professional publishing features, such as CMYK color, separations, ICC color management and versatile PDF creation. This application can be compaired to Adobe InDesign.
Diagram and Flowcharts
OpenOffice.org
– http://www.openoffice.org/
Want a free Office suite that is fully compatible with all major Office suites including Microsoft Office? Want a program that will create Adobe Acrobat files for free? Want a program that will create Macromedia Flash files for free? This is the program. Save hundreds of dollars by using this software. This program even has a database program similar to Microsoft Access and a program similar to Microsoft Visio. It even repairs damaged Microsoft Office documents (Word, Excel, PowerPoint). Runs on Microsoft Windows and Linux.
Dia – http://live.gnome.org/Dia
Dia is roughly inspired by the commercial Windows program 'Visio', though more geared towards informal diagrams for casual use. It can be used to draw many different kinds of diagrams. It currently has special objects to help draw entity relationship diagrams, UML diagrams, flowcharts, network diagrams, and many other diagrams. It is also possible to add support for new shapes by writing simple XML files, using a subset of SVG to draw the shape.
It can load and save diagrams to a custom XML format (gzipped by default, to save space), can export diagrams to a number of formats, including EPS, SVG, XFIG, WMF and PNG, and can print diagrams (including ones that span multiple pages).
The Windows version works with Windows 2000, XP, or Vista.
Windows download page: http://dia-installer.de/download.html
Financial
Home Inventory – http://www.knowyourstuff.org/
Free Home Inventory software available from the Insurance Information Institute. Very easy to use program that works very well. Program lets you add pictures of your house, each room in the house, and individual items along with information about each item and the value. Run a variety of reports that you can give to your Insurance agent. Registration is required.
File Archiving
IZArc
– http://www.izarc.org/
IZArc is the ultimate freeware archive utility supporting many archive formats like: 7-ZIP, A, ACE, ARC, ARJ, B64, BH, BIN, BZ2, BZA, C2D, CAB, CDI, CPIO, DEB, ENC, GCA, GZ, GZA, HA, IMG, ISO, JAR, LHA, LIB, LZH, MDF, MBF, MIM, NRG, PAK, PDI, PK3, RAR, RPM, TAR, TAZ, TBZ, TGZ, TZ, UUE, WAR, XXE, YZ1, Z, ZIP, ZOO. With a modern easy-to-use interface, IZArc provides support for most compressed and encoded files, as well as access to many powerful features and tools. It allows you to drag and drop files from and to Windows Explorer, create and extract archives directly in Windows Explorer, create multiple archives spanning disks, creating self-extracting archives, repair damaged zip archives, converting from one archive type to another, view and write comments and many more. IZArc has also build-in multilanguage support. In addition, they also have a portable version of this software called IZArc2Go.
Suggested by Shimon Lebowitz of Yerushalayim, Israel.
SyncToy helps you copy, move, rename, and delete files between folders and computers quickly and easily. (For use on Windows 7, Vista, XP). This utility is provided by Microsoft.
Office Suites
OpenOffice.org
– http://www.openoffice.org/
Want a free Office suite that is fully compatible with all major Office suites including Microsoft Office? Want a program that will create Adobe Acrobat files for free? Want a program that will create Macromedia Flash files for free? This is the program. Save hundreds of dollars by using this software. This program even has a database program similar to Microsoft Access and a program similar to Microsoft Visio. It even repairs damaged Microsoft Office documents (Word, Excel, PowerPoint). Runs on Microsoft Windows and Linux.
Project
Open Workbench – http://www.openworkbench.org/
Open Workbench is an open source desktop application that provides robust project scheduling and management functionality. Already the scheduling standard for more than 100,000 project managers worldwide, Open Workbench is a free and powerful alternative to Microsoft Project. Note that registration (free) is required to download the software.
OpenProj – http://www.serena.com/products/openproj/
OpenProj is the #1 open source project management application on the planet. With more than one million users, only Microsoft Project has more users. Speaking of Microsoft Project, OpenProj does everything that Project does. It also adds a few tricks Project hasn't learned: it works on Windows, Mac, Unix and Linux. And it's completely free.
Reference
BiblioExpress – http://www.biblioscape.com/biblioexpress.htm
BiblioExpress is a simple reference manager for researchers. It is the freeware edition of their flagship product Biblioscape. BiblioExpress can be used to collect literature references of different types, to explore bibliographic resources on the Internet, as well as to serve as a free viewer of bibliographic data. BiblioExpress can format records in several popular styles, including ACS, APA, and MLA. BiblioExpress is designed to be small and efficient. If you are a student, or you cannot afford to buy full blown bibliographic software (such as Biblioscape or EndNote), BiblioExpress is an ideal solution. BiblioExpress is Portable. It does not require installation and can run from a thumb drive.
Utilities
Convert – http://joshmadison.com/software/convert-for-windows/
Convert is an easy to use unit conversion program that will convert the most popular units of distance, temperature, volume, time, speed, mass, power, density, pressure, energy and many others, including the ability to create custom conversions! This is a small application that can be very helpful.
KeyNote – http://www.tranglos.com/free/index.html
Keynote is a flexible, multi-featured tabbed notebook. Consider Keynote a note taking application. If you are in college and use a computer to take notes then this application is what you are looking for! The built-in strong encryption will even allow you to secure your notes! This application can also be used in taking notes for bookmarks, finances, to do list, and more!
KeyNote was written to overcome major limitations in other popular information managers, both free and shareware. KeyNote is the only information manager that offers a combination of simple and tree-type notes, rich text editor, ability to mix freely many notes of different types in a single file and secure encryption. This makes KeyNote the most flexible and one of the most powerful applications of this kind currently available.
doPDF free PDF converter – http://www.dopdf.com/
doPDF is a free PDF converter for both personal and commercial use. Using doPDF you can create searchable PDF files by selecting the "Print" command from virtually any application. With one click you can convert your Microsoft Excel, Word or PowerPoint documents or your emails and favorite web sites to PDF files.
doPDF installs itself as a virtual printer driver so after a successful installation it will appear in your Printers and Faxes list. To create PDF files, you just have to print your documents to the doPDF pdf converter. Open a document (with Microsoft Word, WordPad, NotePad or any other software), choose Print and select doPDF. It will ask you where to save the PDF file and when finished, the PDF file will be automatically opened in your default PDF viewer. doPDF is very easy to use. The PDF files created are smaller than PDF files created with other programs such as OpenOffice.org with the same clarity.
PDFTK The PDF Toolkit
– http://www.accesspdf.com/pdftk/
If PDF is electronic paper, then pdftk is an electronic staple-remover, hole-punch, binder, secret-decoder-ring, and X-Ray-glasses. Pdftk is a command-line tool for doing everyday things with PDF documents. This application allows you to merge PDF Documents, Split PDF pages into a new document, decrypt input (password required), encrypt output as desired, Fill PDF Forms with FDF Data, Apply a background watermark, Attach files to PDF pages or the PDF document, unpack PDF attachments, Burst a PDF document into single pages, repair corrupted PDF documents (where possible), and more.
Launcher – http://www.scottfam.us/useful/launcher/
Launcher is an easy-to-use auto-run menu for a CD. If you are distributing files to a customer, client, or group then this software can do what you need. It features a customizable menu which can be changed very easily using the included Lcreate program. The program is fully documented and the zip file includes a fully working example. Works with Windows XP or Windows Vista. This program is only available from ScottFam.us!